Brrrr, how about that frost?

Below zero cold snap felt across Waikato

FLORENCE KERR AND LIBBY WILSON

Last updated 05:00 27/05/2014

Peter Drury/Waikato Times

GRIN AND BEAR IT: Snowfall doesn’t deter trampers heading up the Turoa Ski Field road to a Ruapehu mountain hut. Michela O’Sullivan, of Ohakune, centre, makes fun of the cold with Welsh visitor Neil Davies, who was on his first tramp. In the background, Barbara Ward of Wellington packs away her camera.

"It is expected around this time. The next wave should come about July/August when their wood runs out."

Baker said the best advice he could give people was to stock up early.

"We sell wood in the summertime and that gives our customers time to let the wood dry for the next winter."

The wintry blast hit the the rest of the country with the first snowfall on the Desert Road causing the postponement of the annual Kaimanawa Horse muster yesterday.

Kaimanawa Heritage Horses co-ordinator Simone Frewin said they hoped the muster, organised by the Department of Conservation and the New Zealand Army, would take place today.

Cold and frosty days lie ahead for the Waikato, Coromandel and Central Plateau but the first day of the long weekend looks more forgiving.

Today could be one of the coldest so far this year but there was an upside, MetService meteorologist Elke Louw said.

"We've actually got this high pressure that's going to be raging in so that helps to clear all these showers away. And as a result of this cold air that has come up from the south, that's still going to be lingering around. So we're going to have those beautiful clear skies."

Residents of the Waikato and the Coromandel Peninsula were expected to wake to frosty minimum temperatures of around -2C today, whereas the Central Plateau would experience -4 to -6C and severe frosts.

Motorists in the area should on alert for the unseen danger of black ice, which could be produced if the rain and melted snow on the surface froze in the low overnight temperatures, Louw said.

Maximum temperatures were set to creep up to the low teens around the region, and Louw predicted Wednesday would be much the same.

"There's definitely going to be a bite in the air. You're definitely going to feel a change in the temperatures and that cold that's going to go through your layers of clothes."